Putting Email Personalization Into Practice

I don’t know about you, but when I receive a marketing communication that addresses me as “Customer,” I tend to move on to the next item. This is doubly true with email, since I know the risk of viruses and spam is high.

How can you be sure that the email you receive from your nephew isn’t really some scammer looking for easy money? Hackers are refining their targeting methods, and the last thing marketers want is to be confused for one. That’s why personalization is key to successful email marketing.

According to a recent study we conducted, 2 out of 3 consumers prefer personalized communications. Successful email marketing removes the fear and suspicion that often accompany communications individuals receive from unfamiliar or infrequent senders. In an email campaign for Nissan and Nokia, the world leader in navigation system map technology, we found that consumers were much more likely to trust and click through a communication that included their full name and account information (down to their vehicle identification number) than a communication that didn’t.

Email personalization should include more than just the recipient’s name. Email communications should be relevant to the consumer and ideally include account information, identification numbers/codes and, in some cases, purchase history. Take a look at the following tips to see how we increased open and click-through rates and created a lift in performance for Nokia and Nissan’s map update email campaign.

Establish relevancy with personalization, beginning with the subject line. A subject line is much like the window on an envelope that reveals important copy in a mailer. It offers a glimpse of the communication. For Nokia and Nissan’s map update email campaign, we established brand recognition by referencing a product purchased by the customer, thereby removing any suspicions the recipient might have about the legitimacy of the email: “Urgent notice regarding your navigation system map.”

Successful email marketing partly relies on a concise, impactful subject line. Letting customers know up front that you have an existing relationship with them reinforces your credibility. You want to nudge the recipient into opening the email, so be sure to employ language that entices as much as informs. Remember, you want your email to stand out, especially if it’s fighting for attention in a cluttered inbox. Getting the customer to open an email is half the battle.

Ensure the customer is in familiar, navigable territory. When customers open the email, you want their surroundings to be recognizable. (You don’t want to drop them off in a jungle of irrelevance.) This can be accomplished by populating the body of the email with personal data. Tailor content and align messaging with the featured product or service. For Nokia and Nissan’s map update email campaign, we assembled all account information in one place, either in a right rail or in a banner at the top of the email, making it easy to find. This included make, model, year and vehicle identification number. We also incorporated the same information in the body of the email.

One of the biggest advantages of including personal data in an email or marketing communication is that it lends ease and manageability to updating contracts and services and resolving maintenance issues. According to MarketingSherpa, nearly 70% of people would volunteer their personal information for improved customer service.

Simplify the decision process with personalization. Imagine that a customer service representative has just put you on hold. Now you’re listening to music meant to comfort and soothe as the minutes tick by. The minutes keep ticking by and no one has retrieved your call. You’re not happy, to say the least, and eventually you hang up, your issue left unresolved.

Email personalization allows customers to bypass this painful step in customer service. Successful email marketing could also provide a vital, final piece of information the customer needs to move forward on a service or product upgrade. The goal of Nokia and Nissan’s map update email campaign was to encourage existing customers to upgrade their navigation system, and doing so was made easy because all the required information was emailed directly to them.

It’s clear that personalized emails far outperform generalized emails. Taking the time to acknowledge an existing customer as such not only reflects well on the marketer but also fosters a level of trust that might not otherwise be established with a simple “Greetings, Customer.”

For more information on the benefits of email personalization and successful email marketing, check out our blog article, Impact of personalizing automotive email marketing.